Looks like Skrtel could be signed in time for the Boro game. He sounds great and looks similiar to Agger in stature. Be interesting to see how Rafa
plays him. If he as good as is being made out then we have three quality centre-backs.

DIC has gotta be a better option than these yanks..since they bought the club rafa has been unsettled,though his tactics in some games cannot be
explained or excused.i have a theory that rafa is still under the impression that draws/not losing for an extended period,will keep you near the
top.in spanish/italian football they're a lot more conservative and this might work,but not in england.

to win the comp the side needs to have a swagger,to really believe that no other side can touch them..i don't see that mentality developing..but
enough boss bashing,rafa rules while he's in charge and we don't know what's happening behind the scenes.

we've had what,3 different stadium "unveilings",only to be told weeks later hang on it's not quite a done deal.we need to start building >now<

i think DIC would be more of a "whatever it takes" abramovich type owner..that's what we need in the ludicrous market his type of ownership has
created.

But this stuff is gonna affect everyone at the club. There are rumours that David Moores has resigned from the board today, but I'm not sure how
reliable it is. Also, Foster Gillett is meant to have cleared his desk and done one back to the states.

I've seen these rumours as well - if foster gillett wants to go then wtf, who cares, but it would be sad if moores left - he's a true red and has
only ever wanted the best for the club.

Now if parry left, that would be OK with me - a weak, vacillating man who seeks only to protect his own position and does not have the best interests
of the club at heart - this goes back for many years biut was particularly bad when DIC first came in - the deal was almost done when parry said
"hang on, there's other interest".
What he meant was "I'm going to be more secure in my role if I bring the yanks in, so I'll do my best to upset DIC" and guess what - it worked.

After completing due diligence and with proposals being put on the table, Parry backed off and spoke to the yanks, upsetting DIC who thought the deal
was pretty much done (who's representatives are royalty) who promptly said "sod you then, we're off"

My surprise is they have come back in.

Ah well - we should know by the end of feb

Rafa may not be perfect, but he's the best manager we've had since paisley - fagan and dalglish inherited a very good spine and only had to tinker a
bit.

Rafa has had to start pretty much from scratch and is doing a damn good job.

Anyway, good protests from the crowd. The royal bank of scotland lost 7% in the crash today, and now the the Telegraph are reporting that the muppets
new loans might be failing to come to fruition.

I really, really do hope that is the case. From what I've read, these guys are going to put us right up sh!t creek without a paddle:

Basically, we'll go from being a business that was sold for £234m to being a business with a loan of perhaps £350m. Yes, there is some added
value in terms of increased revenue streams and a better squad, but remember that we've now given the banks the better part of £50m in interest
payments and arrangement fees: that's gone for good and we've seen no benefits of it whatsoever.

What's been holding up the refinancing has been the reluctance of G&H to provide collateral as a guarantee to the bank that they won't scarper.
Given that the loans are now greater than the value of the club (because we've given the banks a lot of money), it's not surprising that RBS want to
be able to recover the difference from G&H if the club has to be sold.

This isn't like a mortgage, where you pay something back each month and you own the club outright after 25 years. It isn't even like an
interest-only mortgage, where you pay off the interest each month and hope that the club can be sold at a profit after a few years. No, this is
pretty much what Leeds did: they borrowed more money than they could afford to pay back and eventually they had to sell everything they had to stay
solvent.

We are now, to put it simply, in a dreadful mess and it's increasingly difficult to fathom out exactly what Gillett & Hicks are doing. So far, their
first 12 months in charge look like throwing away about £50m the club doesn't have and causing utter chaos off - and on - the pitch. Assuming the
refinancing is completed, G&H will stand having not put a single cent of their own money into the club and we will be loaded with more debt than
we're theoretically worth.

£50 million given to banks in one year to finance loans so that these muppets can own our club with no risk to themselves. Placing the club with
massive debt that we might not be able to service.

Just one season without champs league football could push us over the edge.

This is before taking on another £300m loan to build the new stadium. It could be something like £60m on loans every year.

When the club captain comes out and starts saying things are wrong then the S really has HTF.

I hope we don't have to write this whole season off. If the dip in form continues we will struggle to get back in the top 4. Everton (Somebody throw
me to a lion) The Villa, Man C and Pompey are all pushing.

Something needs to happen and happen fast, scrapping a draw with Villa is a borderline insult! Far to much off the pitch trouble.

With all the money in Footy these days the whole game is seriously heading down the pan. The national game has been ruined by greedy fwitts. The
national team is a joke.

I take your point about Lverpool finishing the season well. I suspect that they will finish fourth due to the strength of depth of their squad
compared to the teams you mentioned.

However, I really do think that Gerrard is getting frustrated with Liverpool's lack of progress in challenging the other 3 of the Big 4.
Rafa's record against them isn't good at all and an honest assessment shows that they still have quite a bit of catching up to do.

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